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Would You Pay $300,000 to Become a Citizen of This Proposed Free-Market Utopia…in Detroit?

Jan. 28, 2013 5:25pm Jason Howerton

This futuristic rendering of Belle Isle is one where it is a commonwealth separate from the U.S. with a unique governing tax system. (Artist’s rendering)

If you had the opportunity to live in a free-market utopia — complete with its own currency and government — would you do it?

Well, you just may get your chance.

While the city of Detroit continues to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, one developer is proposing a radical and revolutionary idea to rekindle the American spirit and bring Detroit back into prosperity.

The driving force behind the plan, developer Rodney Lockwood, wants Detroit to sell the city’s Belle Isle Park for $1 billion to private investors who will then transform it into a utopia free of big government and ideally full of job creation and innovation. Belle Isle is an uninhabited 928-acre island in the Detroit River, between the U.S. and Canada.

Under the plan, the island would be developed into a U.S. commonwealth or city-state with around 35,000 people. Citizenship for the “remarkable new nation” would cost $300,000 in most cases. The community would also have its own laws, transportation, customs and currency.

Developer Rodney Lockwood says the economic effects of his plans for Belle Isle, the largest island city park in the United States, could restore Detroit to its glory days (Daily Mail)

The Douglas MacArthur Bridge connects Detroit to Belle Isle, which developers want to buy and turn into a new city-state. (Daily Mail)

The Detroit News has more details on what the Commonwealth of Belle Isle would really look like:

Here’s the scenario for the Commonwealth of Belle Isle that Lockwood and others want to see: Private investors buy the island from a near-bankrupt Detroit for $1 billion. It then would secede from Michigan to become a semi-independent commonwealth like Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Under the plan, it would become an economic and social laboratory where government is limited in scope and taxation is far different than the current U.S. system. There is no personal or corporate income tax. Much of the tax base would be provided by a different property tax — one based on the value of the land and not the value of the property.

It would take $300,000 to become a “Belle Islander,” though 20 percent of citizenships would be open for striving immigrants, starving artists and up-and-coming entrepreneurs who don’t meet the financial requirement.

Among the citizenship requirements are a command of the English language, a good credit rating and no criminal record. Mogk adds that such a scenario would make the island “a drain of talent and resources” at the expense of Detroit.

Though it is still considered a long shot by some, the plan has some influential supporters, including Mackinac Center for Public Policy senior economist David Littmann, retired Chrysler President Hal Sperlick and co-founder of Detroit’s Conerstone Schools Clark Durant. The group, along with Lockwood, presented their plan to city officials last week.

Lockwood first laid out his vision in his novel titled “Belle Isle: Detroit’s Game Changer.”

(Daily Mail)

“I think it could be a model for America to show what efficient, value-based government can do for a community of 35,000 to 50,000,” Lockwood told TheBlaze, adding that the concept could also be used as a model on a much larger scale. “In the book, we offer $1 billion and form this community with free market ideas and an efficient, transparent government. There is no income tax and no tax on investments.”

“You have to put ideas out there — especially now, when so much is up for debate,” he said in a previous interview.

Lockwood told TheBlaze he doesn’t plan to make any formal offer to the city until the idea is thoroughly discussed and considered. He also explained that the island has fallen into disrepair and the city is considering letting the state take over the park and handle the maintenance.

But don’t get your hopes too high. George Jackson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., says the plan won’t go anywhere. He said the island will likely be turned into a state-run park.

“Belle Isle will get fixed,” Jackson said. “It won’t be that plan. But it will be fixed.”

Detroit City Council held a public hearing on Monday where residents debated the city’s plan to lease Belle Isle to the state of Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reports.

If it ever comes to fruition, would you consider living in the Commonwealth of Belle Isle?

–

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Comments (167)

repairsea
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:51pm
Watch “Commune” on netflix and see why this doesn’t work. WABODA (my new word for what a bunch of dumb @sses).

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NigelTufnel
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:49pm
Sounds like a very expensive Donneybrook Farm.

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supertas
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:42pm
LOL, Detroit? Tell ya what. Pay me 300,000 and I’ll get back to ya.

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ThoreauHD
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:38pm
They would have to separate from the United States for this to be possible. And that may be coming sooner than they think.

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perry1980
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:37pm
I believe this is what Glenn Beck had in mind. Wish i could afford it.

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CatherineAnn
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:33pm
What! The area around it is crime ridden slum. Some of the worse areas of Detroit. Why would anyone want to live anywhere near that place? I am telling you, you would be encircled by filth. This guy is really dreaming. On second thought, the idea is so ridiculous it makes me laugh!

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Beckaj
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:11pm
I love the idea of an Atlantis. It would be a target for the left for sure. I’m not sure Detroit is the best place for it.

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Lemonade Grandma
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:10pm
I like the concept.

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Lemonade Grandma
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:06pm
They are going to need their own army to keep the looters from coming across the bridge.

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:04pm
If you have $300K to invest, why the heaven would you move to an island like you were going to Alcatrez?

If you have $300K, and you can’t figure out how to live in America now, you are not going to figure it out in some utopia run by people that will just take your money?

Let me makes this simple so that a five year old can understand it? How many restaurants do you know, that won’t let you use the restroom, unless you are a customer? How many restaurants do you go to, after you got out of car, barely able to contain yourself, then read the sign that says go away?

How many fat people have medical problems that cost tax payers money? How many healthy people don’t cost the system at all? Moral of the story? The reason why the founding fathers did not micro manage the lives of citizens, and make it extremely hard to do so, was because things even out, over time?

Sure, lock your bathroom to only paying customers, and you loose potential customers? Make impossible rules to live by the put people in fear and anxiety, and even if they loose the weight, they die prematurely because you made their lives a living hell?

It’s time to cowboy up America, and stop being girly men? It’s time to demand property tax cuts if you home school, and provide competition in the market place, and stop stealing homes of parents when they can’t work anymore, but you expect them to pay taxes? Why buy a house, if you can’t figure that out?

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- DougHuffman
  Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:33pm
  Well said, “If you have $300K, and you can’t figure out how to live in America now, you are not going to figure it out in some utopia run by people that will just take your money?” If you have to buy your way in then it ain’t Utopia or Heaven, it’s just another Ponzi Scheme. Believe nothing that one reads or hears without verifying it, unless it fits your preexisting worldview (this latter clause excuses the invincibly ignorant).
  
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Sparky77
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 8:01pm
Why not figure out how to do a very similar thing with a broke central or south american country —- purchasing a lot of land from them and actually forming a new country that would truly be a clean sheet?

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Inlightofthings
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:57pm
Looks like Israel in the making, complete with the qassam rockets and who knows what else…

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jlancecombs
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:54pm
My only question is, would I get a discount if I help to build it?

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Motorsports-X
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:46pm
id move there. as long as they adopt the constitution and bill of rights.

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jfriedri
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:41pm
Hell, I would take a ride to Mars with no way back to get away from god-forsaken place
Now I know why the Pilgrims risked their lives to come to this country.

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Serenabit
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:37pm
I remember as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, driving into the city and going on a paddle boat to Belle Isle. The entire island was an amusement park, the boats even had limited gambling because they were in international waters. Through the corruption of Detroit’s city council and then Mayor Coleman Young, even this business venture fell into decay and had to be closed.

As long as there were no American politicians, no tolerance for illegal immigration, no “diversity” programs for minorities, and everything in the article is true it sounds like it could turn into “Gault’s Gulch.” Not a bad place to be while the rest of the world is tearing itself apart.

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Tmaster
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:33pm
It would be better if they sold them the city of detroit. I am sure they could run it better than the electicted officials can.

They could then create a company called (OCP) Omni Consumer Products who would run the city.

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timewarp42
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:23pm
This would be a win-win for Detroit. While the people that live in FreeTopia might be the ultra-rich, Someone has to do the actual work. Those people will live in the surrounding cities and counties. So, they get the one billion for the island and all the additional revenue from the influx of new people.

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TheFederalist
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:20pm
No. For one… the island is too small, and 35,000 people on 928 acres is too crowded. Second…. it gets too cold and the weather is mostly crappy. I`ll pass.

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DEFCON4
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 7:00pm
Utopia, literally translated is no place.
Creating Utopian visions is an exercise in ‘reverse magic’.
Futile visions that exist no place, nowhere.

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Southernsoul
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:47pm
Pay $300,000 to live in detroit? I wouldn’t live near detroit if they paid ME $300,000.

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rickroland
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:40pm
Sorry, but “free market”, “utopia” and “Detroit” only come together in some alternate universe Earth — namely, not OUR particular Earth.

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Camptown Races
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:38pm
Let me guess… the houses will all look alike… standard issue mailboxes will only be allowed… i will not be allowed to put so much as a plastic duck on them… I won’t be able to hang a flag in my front yard, or a religious symbol….. No thanks… I already deal with a “utopian society”…. it’s called my Home Owners’s Association

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- chips1
  Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:50pm
  “The Truman Show”.
  
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wingnut1955
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:34pm
Oh, yea that’s a great idea. What does PETA think of getting rid of all the deer on the island? Where will the Detroit Yacht Club move? Where will the Detroit Grand Prix move. Quebec tried this with Canada and it didn’t work for them. Aren’t they the role model that the United States is to copy, now? Utopia only can exist while there are no people living there. If the United States allowed this then every Indian reservation will what to do the same. Passports will be needed to go to those casinos like going to the one in Windsor, now.

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SmarterThanTheAverageBear
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 6:34pm
A nice island in the Bahamas or the Caribbean would be a better deal. It won’t set one back one billion dollars. On top of that there is no real need to secede from the USA as the Bahamas has no income tax, no corporate tax, no taxes on interest or dividends, no investment taxes, and no estate taxes.I’m sure as I type this that those with the means are already planning their exit strategy from Odumbo’s Utopian hell he has created with all his liberal minded followers.

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